You, right here

Strategist Ji did not disperse the spiritual energy coating his palm. Still looking exceedingly cautious, he shook out the piece of silk and unfolded it.

There was nothing inside the unfolded silk, but his eyes lit up. As it opened, he saw a drawing on one side.

He spread the silk flat on the ground and studied it intently. After a while, he gave a sinister chuckle. "Heh, I wondered why you bought so many clothes every time you went back. So you had a map drawn on one of them somewhere in the city. What a cunning mind you have. How could I possibly keep watch at all times to stop you from bringing this in? You didn't dare leave the map in your room for fear I might stumble across it, so you transplanted this whole patch of flowers and grass and buried it somewhere out of the way. Ordinarily, I wouldn't think anything of you coming here to weed, plant flowers, or even lie down. But with the map buried here for so long, the roots lost moisture, and some of the flowers inevitably began to wither. Did you usually sit or lie here studying this map?"

A map was plainly drawn on one side of the black robe lying on the ground—a map of the mountains near the northern city. Maps like this were sold in plenty of shops in the city. They were not military maps, but maps intended for traveling merchants and nearby residents. They depicted the terrain of Great Green Mountain and some of the paths and shortcuts leading into it. Those were not their main feature, however. Most importantly, they marked what kinds of Demon Beasts could be found at various distances into the nearby mountains, along with their species and other details. Their chief purpose was to familiarize nearby residents and passing merchants with Great Green Mountain, lest they stray too deep inside or take a wrong turn and never return.

These maps came from two sources. One was the military, which published some of its information. Every year, the military entered the mountains to hunt Demon Beasts, both to train its soldiers and to prevent too many Demon Beasts from gathering along the fringes of Great Green Mountain. Though these beasts were not particularly high-level, they were still deadly to ordinary mortals. The other source was civilian merchant guilds. They also explored Great Green Mountain, gradually compiling their own maps in the process.

The map on this piece of black cloth was clearly not one of the commercially sold versions. Someone must have drawn it specially, intending to make it difficult to discover and easy to hide among clothing.

Strategist Ji no longer cared where the map had come from. A moment's thought told him that Hong Linying surely knew nothing about it either. This was another of Li Yan's means of preserving his life; why would he let anyone else know his movements? What concerned Strategist Ji now was how to discern the boy's intentions from this map, so he turned it over and around, examining it carefully.

After a while, delight spread across Strategist Ji's face. "Heh, clever as you are, how could you know that something like divine sense exists in this world?"

His careful inspection initially revealed little. Only when he held it up against the sunlight and squinted at it did he notice faint marks on the black cloth, though he could not make them out clearly. He simply released his divine sense toward the cloth, and several lines immediately appeared within his perception. The scratches varied in depth and thickness, but one thicker line stood out distinctly. It began not far beyond the northern city gate, followed a small path toward the western side of Great Green Mountain, and finally stopped roughly seventy or eighty li into the mountains. That spot was marked as having very few Demon Beasts.

These lines must have been made over a long period

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by fingers or fingernails repeatedly tracing paths across the black cloth map. Fabric rarely retained such inadvertent scratches, but once Strategist Ji used his divine sense, they immediately became visible.

Strategist Ji examined the thicker scratched line repeatedly with his divine sense. After a while, he smiled. He knew it was thicker than the others because someone had traced that route most often. The repeated scratches overlapped, making it look thicker. That meant this was the route the boy had considered most among the several possibilities, and the one he was most likely to take. Besides, the destination was marked as having very few Demon Beasts, making it a good place to hide.

"Hmph, I knew you wouldn't simply flee back home. You'd be far too easy to find there. Sure enough, you had a purpose behind buying those clothes and planting those flowers."

Strategist Ji tucked the black cloth into his robe and shot out of the valley like lightning. Reaching the open ground outside, he called Chen An and Li Yin over again. With both men looking uneasy, he gave them a few quiet instructions, then sped down the mountain.

After receiving his orders, Chen An and Li Yin looked thoughtful as well. Before long, they went into the woods to fetch their horses, then rode down the mountain.

Strategist Ji had ordered the two of them to make their way quietly to Li Family Village at the foot of Great Green Mountain and discreetly investigate the situation there. If they found Li Yan in the village, one was to remain and keep watch while the other returned to report to him. Though Strategist Ji was almost certain Li Yan would not return to the village, he still refused to overlook any possibility.

After descending the mountain, Strategist Ji did not immediately follow the map to search for Li Yan. Instead, he entered the city again and secretly searched the Natural Wine House and Ironware Pavilion. Only after confirming that Li Yan was at neither place did he feel reassured.

Strategist Ji glanced at the sky. It was nearly noon. He got some food at the Natural Wine House, ate a simple meal, then rose and headed out of the city.

The mountain path was rugged and thick with thorns. Like many paths leading into Great Green Mountain, it saw little regular use. The weeds and vines in the mountains grew extremely quickly, and their tangled stems soon carpeted trails that someone had occasionally cleared in the past.

At noon in early summer, the mountains were already growing hot. An occasional breeze brought a hint of coolness, carrying the fragrance of wildflowers and a pleasant sense of ease.

The man walking through them, however, felt anything but comfortable. Dressed in a black robe, his face "dark," Strategist Ji kept crouching to search before continuing onward. By now, his face was covered in sweat.

Divine sense was not particularly useful here. Judging by the map, the destination lay about seventy or eighty li from the turnoff on the main road. That was not especially far, particularly for someone with extraordinary abilities like him. But thorns crowded the ground, while enormous tree crowns towered overhead. As he walked, the path frequently branched into numerous smaller trails, themselves covered in thorns and shrubs. One careless turn could send him in the wrong direction, leaving him far off course.

Although, with

his current spiritual power, he could skim along as though traveling over level ground, that would inevitably disturb the birds and beasts in the woods. The boy might hear them from far away and become a bird startled by the bow, making the search even harder. He therefore had to advance cautiously so he could close in and seize Li Yan in a single move.

Looking at the shrubs on the ground, Strategist Ji felt the veins in his forehead throb. Someone had clearly tampered with them again. In the time it took to drink a cup of tea, he had already encountered this several times while cautiously making his way forward, and now he had to correct his course yet again. The boy actually knew how to create camouflage, traps, and the like. Divine sense could not detect these cleverly arranged alterations. It merely replaced the eyes, allowing one to see more clearly or farther—though with Strategist Ji's current spiritual power, his divine sense could not yet see farther than his eyes. Clear sight was one thing, however; judging what was right or wrong, genuine or false, still required a person's own discernment.

Since entering the mountains, he had traveled only twenty li or so, yet he had corrected his course at least four times. Once, he had nearly startled birds from the woods. Though he did not believe Li Yan could see him from here, he dared not be careless. He now saw Li Yan in a new light. The boy was patient and capable of concealing his intentions, and his cunning might be no less than his own. Even Strategist Ji's confidence began to waver. He could no longer be certain that Li Yan had gone to the place marked on the map. Perhaps he had changed direction along the way, or was hiding somewhere midway.

He still knew too little about the details of Li Yan's life. Since childhood, Li Yan had accompanied the village adults into the mountains to hunt. Half the village's income came from hunting, so naturally they possessed hunting methods passed down through generations. Camouflage and traps like these were merely things they used all the time. Otherwise, given the keen instincts of Demon Beasts, even unranked ones would have been extremely difficult to catch because of their inborn vigilance.

Although Strategist Ji's Immortal-Seeking Lineage also possessed methods of concealment and tracking, their main focus was on avoiding Demon Beasts. Their search techniques were intended to follow the faintest threads and traces left behind by immortals.

Time passed little by little, and the sun slowly sank westward. Just as night was about to fall, he finally reached a mountainside without disturbing too many birds or beasts.

Strategist Ji was now lying concealed among the leaves at the top of an enormous tree, looking upward ahead of him. About a li away, halfway up the mountain, lay a platform roughly seven or eight zhang across. Several huge pines swayed in the gentle breeze, their faint rustling like distant waves. Beneath one of them, someone was sitting and eating.

Strategist Ji channeled spiritual power into his eyes and looked intently. That person also wore a black robe and sat on a huge rock beneath a pine, eating a bite now and then and frequently glancing around. Behind him lay a cliff.

"So you're right here?" Strategist Ji watched for a while. It was indeed Li Yan, and he could not help murmuring to himself.

"There are few Demon Beasts here, so it's a good hiding place. But halfway up this mountain, where else can you go?"

Strategist Ji remained concealed in the enormous canopy rather than acting immediately. He was considering how to succeed in a single strike. Li Yan sat on a rock beneath the huge pine, very close to the cliff behind him. How deep the drop was could not be judged from the direction Strategist Ji had approached. He might have been climbing uphill ever since some point after entering the mountains; it was simply that the slope on his side was gentle.

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If he failed to seize Li Yan in one strike and drove him into a dead end, the boy might well stake his life in a desperate struggle. In despair, all he needed to do was turn around and plunge over the cliff. Then Strategist Ji would lose both the chicken and its eggs.

He continued lying motionless among the enormous canopy's leaves, quietly observing. After finishing his food, Li Yan took a waterskin from the bundle on the ground and drank a mouthful, then set it beside the stone slab at his feet.

Suddenly, as though he had heard something, Li Yan dropped sharply to the ground and lay prone. The movement made Strategist Ji's heart tighten in alarm.

He had plainly made no sound just now. Had the boy discovered him? Next, he saw Li Yan slowly raise his head a little and turn his eyes toward him. His heart immediately rose into his throat. Damn it, the boy really has spotted me. How in the world did he do it? Strategist Ji cursed inwardly. Since he had been discovered, he would have to speak. Yes, speak—that was one of the methods he had just been considering. The distance was too great, roughly a li uphill. No matter what, he could not reach Li Yan and seize him in the time it took the boy to turn around.

Just as he was about to stand up and speak to keep Li Yan from acting rashly, he suddenly sensed that something was wrong. The boy's eyes moved away from his hiding place and slowly swept toward his left, growing exceptionally wary.

Could there be someone else to my left? No, I searched the area when I arrived and found nothing there. That was why I hid here. Is the boy being oversensitive, taking a bow's reflection in his cup for a snake? Strategist Ji held still again, deciding to watch before making his next move.

Sure enough, after a little while, Li Yan continued looking around from halfway up the mountain. He no longer examined only the area to the left of Strategist Ji's position, but carefully studied the right as well. Then he slowly got to his feet.

Fuck, he really is just scared. The boy's nerves are frayed; even a gust stirring the grass sends him into a panic. Furious, Strategist Ji could not help swearing inwardly. He had nearly exposed his own whereabouts just now. If he had actually stepped out and then failed to calm the boy, he would have regretted it until his guts turned green.

After standing, Li Yan looked around again, then tilted his head and listened for a while. Only then did he slump back onto the huge rock. Looking down, he hurriedly fumbled to pick up the waterskin he had placed beside him. When he had abruptly dropped to the ground, he had kicked over the uncapped waterskin he had casually left at the edge of the rock. Clear water was now burbling out of its mouth. Though there were clear springs in these mountains, none were nearby, and fetching water required a long walk.

Li Yan quickly picked up the waterskin and pushed the stopper into its mouth. Then he shook it beside his ear and sighed.

Just then, Strategist Ji unexpectedly noticed something from his perch in the enormous canopy. As the water spilled from the waterskin, the rock beside Li Yan changed color. A thought stirred in his mind. Once more, he focused his gaze, pouring spiritual power into his eyes. After examining it very carefully for a while, he felt a jolt of alarm.